Only Love

by Elizabeth Lowell

  The subject of passion and naive little eggs never came up. Nor was there any discussion of death and Silent John or of widows and safety.

  The weather was a favorite topic for what little conversation Whip and Shannon had.

  Prettyface was the only creature in the cabin that was fully at ease. He begged scraps from Whip and Shannon equally, offered his head to both people to be petted, and looked to man and woman alike as a source of open doors and romps in the meadow.

  Shannon should have been pleased by Prettyface’s acceptance of Whip. Most of her was, but a part of her wondered acidly if the dog would leave her when Whip did.

  The following morning Shannon slept later than usual. She had spent a restless night filled with dreams and yearnings she couldn’t express in words. She woke up to a familiar sound. Whip was splitting wood.

  “Good,” Shannon said beneath her breath. “Maybe he can work out his bad temper on the woodpile instead of on me. Besides, what did I ever do to him except…”

  Sensual memories licked through Shannon with tiny tongues of fire. Her nipples tightened to aching peaks.

  Oh, no. Why won’t it go away?

  Shannon threw back the blankets and shot out of bed as though it were on fire.

  But it wasn’t the bed. It was her body.

  No wonder Whip is giving the wood such a going over. He must feel as edgy-achey-strange as I do.

  Hurriedly Shannon went about the familiar chores of making breakfast and putting the cabin back in order. When she was finished, she went to the cabin window, unlatched the shutters, and let the crisp air wash over her.

  A glance told her that Whip had split an impressive amount of stove wood since she had first heard him at work shortly after dawn. She had meant to get up then, but instead had rolled over and slid back into the subtly fevered dreams that had claimed her for most of the night.

  With a hunger Shannon didn’t understand, she watched the taut strength of Whip’s body while he transformed lengths of fir logs into clean pieces of stove wood. Never once did he look up to see if she was standing in the window. He simply kept working as though his strength was truly limitless.

  “At this rate, I’m going to be buried alive in wood,” Shannon muttered to herself.

  When she realized that watching Whip was only increasing the restless fever of her body, she turned her back on the open window.

  “His hands will never heal if he keeps that up.”

  Shannon frowned. That was another topic Whip had refused to discuss. The one time she had asked Whip how his hands felt, he shot her a narrow-eyed look and changed the subject.

  To the weather, of course.

  Both of them agreed it was just lovely, from sleet to sunshine and back again.

  Shannon sighed. She hadn’t felt quite so alone since her mother died and left her to the mercy of a step-aunt who had no mercy in her. The odd thing was that Shannon had never felt particularly lonesome in Echo Basin before now, but remembering how much fun it had been to share the days with Whip made her feel the present distance from him all the more keenly.

  Without warning, Shannon had a vivid, tactile memory of what it had been like to be kissed and petted by Whip. In the wake of memory, a primitive kind of heat blossomed in her. She couldn’t help hoping that once his anger was past, he would kiss her again, and touch her, and…

  “What do you think, Prettyface? Is Whip’s temper going to give out before the logs do?”

  Prettyface yawned.

  “You’re right. His surly mood will outlast the whole blasted forest.”

  “Count on it.”

  Shannon jumped at the sound of Whip’s voice just behind her at the open window. She spun around, blushing at having been caught thinking aloud.

  Whip was standing with his forearms crossed on the windowsill, smiling at her. Then he laughed.

  Shannon’s answering smile was as beautiful as an unexpected sunrise.

  Honey girl, don’t smile at me like that. All my good intentions will burn to ash.

  “Does this mean you’ve forgiven me?” Whip asked softly, knowing he shouldn’t, unable to stop himself.

  “Forgiven you? For what?”

  “Teaching Prettyface a few manners, and then forgetting my own.”

  “I wasn’t angry about Prettyface.”

  “Could have fooled me. I saw you holding a fully loaded, fully cocked shotgun on me.”

  At first Shannon believed Whip was teasing her. But there was no deviltry in his quicksilver eyes. Abruptly her good humor turned to anger.

  “I was going to shoot Prettyface,” she said starkly.

  Whip looked shocked. “What?”

  “I thought he was killing you. You weren’t moving and there was blood and it looked like his jaws were locked on your throat.”

  The horror of that moment came back all too forcefully. Shannon turned her back on Whip again.

  “So I got down the shotgun,” she said distinctly.

  “To save my life?”

  “You needn’t sound so shocked,” Shannon said through her teeth.

  But Whip was shocked. He knew how much Shannon loved her dangerous mongrel. He also know how much she depended on Prettyface for companionship and safety.

  Yet she had been ready to kill Prettyface in order to save a man who had made no promises to her.

  Not one.

  “I see,” Whip said.

  “Do you? That would be a first.”

  The irritability in her own voice surprised Shannon.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “I don’t know why I’m so touchy lately.”

  “I do. It comes from wanting someone and going to bed aching and alone.”

  “Then it’s a pure blue wonder that couples survive courtship,” Shannon retorted.

  Whip tried not to laugh. He didn’t succeed.

  He tried not to touch the buried fire in Shannon’s hair. He didn’t succeed in that, either. Slowly he reached through the open window and stroked down between her braids to the graceful nape of her neck.

  Shannon shivered.

  “We’ll survive, honey girl.”

  “That’s because yondering men don’t court ignorant little widowed eggs,” Shannon said crisply, stepping beyond Whip’s reach. “Come in when you’re ready. The biscuits are almost done.”

  While Whip washed his hands, Shannon took a quick look at the larder. Supplies that would have lasted months for her were vanishing at a startling rate.

  Dear Lord, that man eats enough for three. Of course, he works enough for six.

  She bit her lip. Whip kept them in meat and fish, and she gathered fresh greens, but flour couldn’t be stalked and shot in the forest. Nor could it be gathered in the meadow. Neither could beans, apples, rice, salt, and other necessities. Not to mention luxuries like coffee and cinnamon.

  “I’ll have to go into Holler Creek and buy more,” Shannon muttered, closing the cupboard.

  Sure. And just how will I pay for them?

  Shannon thought of the miserable amount of wealth she had concealed in an old poke back in the cave. It was the last of Silent John’s gold. When it was spent, Shannon would be exactly what she had been at thirteen—dead broke, alone, and no one giving a damn whether she lived or died.

  No. I won’t touch that gold.

  I’m not that desperate.

  But Shannon was afraid she would be. Soon.

  After she spent the last of Silent John’s legacy, she would have to depend entirely on her own ability to wrest gold from the stubborn rocks. So far, she had enjoyed even less luck hunting gold that she had hunting meat.

  Shutting the cupboard door firmly, Shannon turned her back on its empty shelves.

  Whip was standing only a few feet away, watching her with quicksilver eyes.

  “I’ll go into Holler Creek for more supplies tomorrow,” Whip said.

  “Thank you, but no. You’ve given me too much already.”

  “I’ve eaten nearly all of i
t myself.”

  “Whose stove wood are you chopping?” Shannon asked mildly. “Whose cabin are you fixing up for winter winds? Whose mule got shod? I should be paying you wages.”

  “I’m barely earning my keep.”

  “You’re earning food, wages, and then some. You never stop working.”

  “I like working,” Whip said.

  “I’ll find a way to pay you.”

  “I won’t take money from you.”

  “But you’ve earned it,” she insisted.

  “No.”

  The single word made Shannon feel as though she had run into a granite wall.

  “You’re as stubborn as that mule you shod,” she said.

  “Thank you. I’ve often thought the same about you. But I’ll outstubborn you, widow lady. You can count on it.”

  Irritation surged through Shannon.

  “No, yondering man. All I can count on from you is that someday I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone. Maybe you’ll outstubborn me before then, but I doubt it.”

  Without another word Shannon stepped around Whip and began serving breakfast. He watched her movements with eyes as gray and hard as gunmetal.

  Not until both of them had eaten some food and drunk a cup of coffee did Shannon feel civil enough to break the silence.

  “What kind of jobs have you worked at since you became a yondering man?” she asked.

  Whip’s mouth thinned at the words “yondering man.” He didn’t know why Shannon’s use of the term rankled him so much.

  But it did.

  “Teamster, sailor, surveyor, jackaroo, teacher, shotgun rider,” Whip said in a clipped voice. “You name it and I’ve probably done it, one time or another.”

  “What’s a jackaroo?”

  “An Australian cowpuncher.”

  “Oh.” Shannon frowned and asked, “Did you ever prospect for gold?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Find any?”

  Whip shrugged. “Here and there.”

  “But not enough to stake a claim?”

  “Claims are like wives. They tie you down.”

  “You mean you’ve walked away from gold just because it would tie you down?”

  “Yes,” he said succinctly.

  She swallowed. “I see.”

  “Do you?” Whip asked, echoing her earlier words.

  “Indeed I do. You’ll walk away from home, family, friends, gold, land, any or all of them. And for what, yondering man? What’s worth more than all that put together?”

  “The sunrise I’ve never seen,” Whip said flatly. “For me, there’s nothing more beautiful or compelling than that.”

  Shannon wanted to shake Whip, but knew it would do no good. He believed what he believed.

  And she had just realized a truth that would break her heart.

  “Love is more compelling,” she whispered. “Love is like the sun, burning through darkness…always burning, always beautiful.”

  Whip started to argue, but Shannon’s smile stopped him. Her smile was one of the saddest things he had ever seen, as haunting as the sorrow in her eyes, her voice, her very breath.

  “And like the sun,” Shannon said softly, “love is always beyond reach. It can no more be caught and held than sunlight itself. Love touches you. You don’t touch it.”

  Whip shifted uncomfortably and reached for the biscuits again.

  “For you, maybe,” he said in a clipped voice, rankled again. And again not knowing why. “For me, love is a cage.”

  “No one can build a cage of light.”

  Whip bit back a savage word and drank scalding coffee.

  “What about you?” he asked after a moment. “What do you want? Love?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You mean you don’t have any dreams?” he asked curtly.

  “Dreams?”

  Shannon’s soft laughter taught Whip what sorrow really was. He fought against the sensation of living in her skin, breathing her breath, feeling her pain as though it was his own.

  “Once I dreamed of a home,” Shannon said, “a garden, children, and most of all a man who loved me like the sun burning…”

  Shannon’s voice died.

  Whip paused in the act of reaching for a biscuit. He didn’t want to pursue the subject, but found it impossible not to do just that.

  “Once you dreamed of those things, but not now?” he asked.

  “No, not now.”

  “Why not? You can still have your dreams, Shannon. Plenty of fine, upstanding men would be glad to marry a pretty young widow like you.”

  “Marry me?”

  Shannon laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. Nor was there any sadness. There was simply a bleak acceptance of what was and what was not.

  “All those fine, upstanding men,” Shannon said sardonically, “want the same thing from me a certain yondering man does, and—”

  “Just because I won’t be tied to—”

  “—a home, a garden, and love don’t have a damn thing to do with what those men want,” Shannon continued, talking over Whip. “As for children, the men don’t want them either, but they sure as sin don’t mind leaving their seed behind for the pretty widow lady to raise.”

  Whip’s cheekbones became ruddy against the tan of his face.

  “I told you, I never left any kids behind,” he said flatly.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Shannon asked, arching her dark eyebrows. “We’re talking about fine, upstanding men who would be glad to marry a pretty young widow like me. We already know you’re not one of them, yondering man.”

  “I would make a piss-poor husband!”

  “Am I arguing with you?” she asked gently.

  Whip opened his mouth, then closed it with a distinct clicking of his teeth.

  “No,” he said curtly.

  “Then why are you yelling at me?”

  “I’m not yelling.”

  “I’m so relieved. I fall apart when I’m yelled at.”

  Whip shot Shannon a searing gray glance, but she seemed to be too busy eating bacon to notice.

  “Now,” she said, chewing thoughtfully, “where were we? Ah, yes. We’re not yelling about the fact that neither one of us is in a rush to get married.”

  “It’s fine for me to be on my own,” Whip said grimly. “It’s different for you.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because you can’t take care of yourself and you damn well know it!”

  “Oh, good. Another subject not to yell about. Pass the jam, please, and isn’t the weather lovely?”

  Whip said something blasphemous under his breath.

  Shannon acted as though she hadn’t heard. She reached past Whip, took the pot of preserves, and began slathering jam on a biscuit.

  “Do you prefer sleet or snow?” she asked.

  “Shannon—”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “Such a difficult choice. What about hail? Do you think we could not yell about that?”

  “Doubt it,” he retorted. “I wouldn’t yell about another cup of coffee, though.”

  Hiding a smile, Shannon twisted in her chair and reached back to the stove, grabbing the coffeepot without getting up. She turned back gracefully, surprising an expression of frank hunger on Whip’s face as he looked at her breasts. An instant later the expression was gone.

  Silently Whip held out his coffee cup. Just as silently Shannon poured coffee and replaced the pot on the stove.

  “How about half of whatever you find on Silent John’s gold claims?” Shannon asked. “Would you yell about that?”

  The tin cup of coffee stopped an inch from Whip’s mustache.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Silent John had—has—several claims on Avalanche Creek.”

  Whip shrugged.

  “He worked those claims to pay for food he couldn’t hunt,” Shannon explained.

  “Do tell,” Whip said dryly.

  “I’m trying, yonderin
g man. I’m trying.”

  “My name is Whip,” he said finally, rankled by the nickname.

  “Why do you get upset when I call you yondering man? It’s what you are, isn’t it?” Shannon asked reasonably. “I don’t get upset when you call me a widow, and you’re not even sure I am one.”

  Whip started to argue but knew it was futile before he said a word. He let out a long breath and concentrated on his coffee and bacon for a few minutes.

  Shannon was tempted to push Whip to agree that there was no reason for him to be irritated. Then, reluctantly, she decided that she should quit while she was ahead.

  It was difficult, however. The temptation to bait Whip was nearly irresistible. Frowning slightly, she concentrated on her coffee.

  “My little sister Willow used to do the same thing,” Whip said finally. “My brothers and I decided mothers must teach it to girls along with how to make good biscuits.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tying men up with words.”

  Shannon didn’t hide her smile before Whip saw it.

  “But we do get even,” Whip drawled.

  “Do tell. How?”

  Whip simply smiled.

  “Tell me about those gold claims, honey girl.”

  “There’s not much to tell.”

  “Start with where they are,” he suggested dryly.

  “Up Avalanche Creek.”

  “Which fork?”

  “East. Way, way up, where it comes out of a shattered rock wall.”

  Whip grunted. “Rugged country. Some of the roughest I’ve seen.”

  “Amen,” she said. “Each time I climb up there, I get dizzy and breathless and I just know I’m going to fall.”

  “You have no business going up to such a dangerous place!”

  Shannon ignored Whip.

  “A grizzly got one of the mules there,” she said, “the second summer I was in Echo Basin. After that, Silent John packed in supplies, brought Razorback home, and walked back to the claims.”

  “Did you go with him?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I stayed at the cabin. I didn’t know from day to day what I would be doing. That’s the way he wanted it. He said a hunter can’t kill game that doesn’t have a pattern to its movements.”